Which Villain Am I?

My friend Kyle has got one of the coolest side gigs around. He's doing designs for the next wave of Marvel Comics collectible cards. It's a pretty sweet gig.

The deal is, he designs and draws original artwork of 150 Marvel heroes and villains on these blank Marvel Masterworks cards. Marvel approves the design and Kyle ships them the cards with the original artwork on them. He ships the original cards to Marvel and they place them in one out of every eleven cases of cards. When collecters buy the packs of cards, they have a chance of finding a card with original, one-of-a-kind artwork on it. Straight from the artist! Kyle says that the collecters chase after these cards and trade the shit out of them on ebay.

Well, as soon as I heard that he's doing original designs of Marvel heroes and villains, I started pressuring him to let me be IN one of the cards! To draw a hero of villain that looks like me!

I thought that would be the coolest thing, ever. To know that there's a Marvel collecters card out there somewhere, with my mug on it.

I had no idea which character I would be. With a face THIS pretty, all the chiseled heroes and villains are right out. No Captain America. No Wolvering. No Mr. Fantastic for this big melon.

But I knew it had to be done! So, I whined and begged and pleaded and bought him a beer and he eventually agreed to put me in a card. He even said, "You might make a cool Avalanche!"

So, when Kyle texted me today to tell me to come over and pose for the pic, I immediately agreed. Kyle remembered the promise that he made to me a month or so ago and saved one of the last ten cards in the set to pose me as the character.

We settled down with his Marvel Encyclopedia and began flipping through, looking for characters that I would match. We considered "Doc Samson" and "Apocalypse". Both guys with a BIG noggin. And then we flipped a page and saw our guy... and knew we found our character.

"Oh yeah, dude," he said, "That's it. That's the guy!"

We grabbed a pair of sunglasses and took a couple of pictures and Kyle directed me on what he was looking for and six or seven pictures later, we were done.

Now, I'm not a perfect match for this guy. For one thing, I'm missing his cool-ass costume and his amazing gear. And well ... his hairline isn't receding. But Kyle assures me that he can tweak all of that in the final sketch.

So, which villain am I?

You tell me.

These are the two pics that Kyle settled on. He's going to pick one of them, use it for the pose and add the stuff that it's missing.

It's a contest, baby!

Take a look at them and make a guess on which villain I am. (You've got QUITE enough hints scattered throughout this entry, thankyouverymuch. You DID catch them, didn't you?) Post your guesses in the comments section and I'll let you know when and if you nail it. I will even offer a prize of some kind for the person who gets it correct. Two guesses per person, please! Bits are welcomed, but not likely to win the contest!

Here are my villainous pics! Take a look!





I will post a scan of the finished card here, when he sends it to me. And I'll post the wiener of this contest and their prize here, when it happens!

Thus begins the journey of waiting until MARVEL releases the card, somebody finds it in their ultra-rare card pack, puts it up on ebay and I bid on it and try to buy it for my own personal home collection. (I'm framing that bad boy!)

One more thing: Kyle's coolness abounds. It was cool of him to remember the conversation. It was even cooler that he sought me out to make it happen. And it's the supreme coolness that he is actually making it happen. He's good peoples.

UPDATE: Nevermind. Paul Imboden nailed it in the first guess. I'll be modeling for The Sinister Doctor Octopus. Thanks for playing!